The NBA’s free agent frenzy will officially tip off on Saturday as teams throughout the league try to figure out a way to close the gap between themselves and the true title-contending teams like the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Some have already made trades to help, but most teams will have to rely on the free-agent market to improve. There are always going to be some assets that are overvalued, with these five players among the riskiest:
DERRICK ROSE, PG
Rose, the 2011 NBA MVP, averaged 18 points, 4.4 assists and 3.8 rebounds in 64 games for New York before a meniscus tear in his left knee cut short his season. It’s now been six years since he’s appeared in more than 70 games. If a team does decide to take a chance on Rose, it better have a strong defensive scheme in place: the New York Knicks gave up 111.1 points per 100 possessions with Rose on the court last season, five more than when he was on the bench, enough of a swing to cause an average defense to become one of the worst in the NBA.
SHAUN LIVINGSTON, PG/SG
The backup guard averaged 5.1 points and 1.8 assists per game for the reigning champion Golden State Warriors last season. Playing with former MVPs Steph Curry and Kevin Durant has obvious benefits, but the team was outscored by 3.9 net points per 100 possessions when Livingston was on the court without those two superstars.
RUDY GAY, SF
The Brooklyn native averaged 18.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game with the Sacramento Kings last season but was only average in transition
(1.1 points per possession) and below-average as the ballhandler on the pick and roll (0.8 points per possession). He’s also below average at defending jump shots
(50.9 effective field goal percentage against) and downright awful at defending shots within 17 feet of the rim (1.18 points allowed per possession), putting him in the bottom 6 percent of the NBA’s defenders.
SERGE IBAKA, PF
The 6-foot-10 power forward transformed his game the past few seasons. Once a fierce rim-protector who led the league in blocks for four consecutive seasons en route to three all-defense team honors, Ibaka now spends more time on the perimeter, averaging four threepoint shots per game last season with one of the lowest rebounding rates of his career (12.2 percent). And when Ibaka does work down low in the post, he averages just 0.87 of a point per possession. As a result, his overall value has dropped from seven wins above replacement during the 2013-14 season to four, 3.2 and 2.7 over each of the last three years.
DANILO GALLINARI, SF/PF
Gallinari averaged 18.2 points per game last season, the second-highest scoring average of his career, and was the only player in the NBA standing 6-foot-10 or taller to average at least five three-point attempts with a free throw attempt rate, the number of free throw attempts per field goal attempt, better than 50 percent last season. Gallinari struggled outside the restricted area last season, converting just 37 percent of his shots within 17 feet of the basket, placing him 32nd of 39 forwards with at least 50 attempts this close to the rim.